


One And One Is Two

by prairiestar



Category: Hot Fuzz (2007)
Genre: Background Slash, Bromance, Friendship, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Platonic Kissing, Platonic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 21:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7818133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiestar/pseuds/prairiestar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moments of homo-romantic friendship between the Andes. Established relationship Danny/Nick in the background.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One And One Is Two

New Andy moved to Sandford from Buford Abbey in the spring of 1989, when his dad bought the bit of land down by Castle Road. New Andy was quiet and pale. Since he arrived in Sandford during school holiday, no one really saw him until the church fete in June.

He wandered around by himself, taking it all in. Observing. After about five minutes, he came to a conclusion. Everything here was exactly like Buford Abbey, only with a slight edge of extra brightness and cheeriness. It was not an environment in which a thirteen year old boy could easily flourish. Not a cool thirteen year old boy, anyway.

"You've got a fine set of gnashers on you, Danny Butterman! Well done!"

Danny would have thanked Reverend Shooter, but he was too distracted to pull the apple from his mouth to speak. Water dripped in his eyes and he blinked and brushed it away.

The boy across the churchyard, with the wavy hair. That was the new boy. New Andy.

Warm water and tart apple juice dribbled down Danny's chin. New Andy seemed to be gazing at him, studying him. Had he been watching long? Was New Andy aware that he was looking at the new Sandford Church Fete apple bobbing champion?

Danny thought that New Andy looked a bit like Tom Selleck, if Tom Selleck were a quiet, pale twelve year old British boy. Danny had overheard his father and Andy's talking at the supermarket one morning last week, and had felt a queer mixture of sympathy, fascination and excitement upon learning that New Andy's mum was gone, too. Based on these two facts - Selleck resemblance and mum loss - Danny imagined that he and New Andy might become friends. Perhaps even best friends. And then... well, they might even stay friends forever, until they were thirty, and then go to New York or Los Angeles and fight crime together.

Danny watched for another moment as New Andy turned and strolled towards the air rifle range. Then his jaw began to ache and he had to look away while he pried an enormous Beauty of Bath from between his teeth.

Two weeks later everyone had met New Andy, and he wasn't new anymore. By the time school started up again he had become Cartwright, friend of Wainwright.

Andy Wainwright was a tall, wiry kid who, since primary school, had treated Danny like a mildly amusing, basically harmless piece of shit that happened to be stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

Perhaps if Andy Cartwright had been Daniel Cartwright, things would have been different. But his name was Andy. So things were exactly like they were.

***

"Happy Birthday, Danny!" Another raucous cheer went up around the whole pub and lingered around the long table at the back of the room. One Turner and two of the new recruits were back at the police station that night, but the rest of the Sandford squad was gathered at the New Crown to celebrate.

The cops took their fun more seriously than ever these days. It was almost exactly two years since The Shit Went Down, and every party still felt a little bit like a victory celebration, especially around this time of year. The Saturday after Danny's birthday tended to go like this; all the cops, at the pub, at one big table, with enough beer to drown them all twice over. And since Danny was finally off every medication that could possibly interact badly with alcohol, the group's overall lager intake was boosted substantially.

The time for celebratory toasts had come and gone for the evening, and Wainwright didn't usually go in for that sort of sentimental shit. So it was a little surprising when he rose to his feet, using Cartwright's shoulder for balance. He was pissed enough that he wobbled a bit, but his words were crisp and clear even from the far end of the table.

"Oi, Doris! Why don't you give Danny yer present?" He leered amiably at her across the expanse of soggy napkins and half-drained pint glasses. "Give him a look at the girls! He's thirty four now, it's time he saw some."

Tony coughed into his beer and almost choked. Turner roused himself from his geriatric stupor.

Doris set down her pint glass and cheerily gave Wainwright a two-fingered salute. Cartwright punched him in the leg -- whether to chide him or encourage him was unclear.

Either way, Wainwright was undeterred. "C'mon now!" His voice was much louder this time. "Show us the goods and I'll buy you a pint."

Cartwright snickered at this remark, and then looked half-fearfully towards Doris. Most of the time, she reacted as good naturedly as she always had to jokes like this. But since The Shit Went Down there had been a few times when she'd bristled at the heavy dose of misogyny the Andys tended to inject into most conversations.

She rolled her eyes. "You lot really think I'd flash my tits for a beer?"

Andy nodded. "Mmmm-hmm. We're pretty sure."

Danny piped up then. "It wouldn't have to be yer charlies, Doris! He just said the goods. You could show 'im yer arse- OW! Nick! I'm only trying to help her get a free pint."

"Ta, Danny." Doris stood, and turned an appraising eye on the two detectives. "I've got an better idea, though. I'll buy the next two rounds for everyone-" a small, surprised cheer went up around the table- "if Andy gives his little partner there a nice, thorough snogging."

Wainwright's confident grin went slightly sour, then fell off his face. Cartwright's eyes flashed panic and he looked down. And after beat of silence... laughter blossomed all around the table. Doris beamed triumphantly at Wainwright, took a small bow, and then took her seat.

"Well played, PC Thatcher." Nicholas's eyes twinkled as he looked at her with admiration. "Bravo."

"Yeah, well." Doris nodded, graciously accepting the compliment. "I ain't without a sense of feminist wotcher-callit, empowerment, no matter wot you lot might think sometimes. Plus..." And she directed Nick's gaze towards the birthday boy with a fond smile. "I knew he'd like it."

"Oh, come on! Do it!!" Danny yelled, delighting in the Andys' embarrassment.

"Ginger..." Walker muttered.

"No. Way." Cartwright shook his head emphatically.

"No fucking way." Wainwright glared at Doris, who merely shrugged innocently, a tiny smirk on her face.

"It's my birthday! You have to!!" Danny crowed happily, waggling his finger at both Andys. Danny was roughly two-and-a-half times as drunk as everyone else.

"I wouldn't mind another couple of pints," Tony remarked innocently.

Doris's smirk grew into a Cheshire-like smile.

"Do it. Do it!"

"Fuck off, Butternuts! It's not happening!"

"I say go for it," Nicholas remarked helpfully.

"I want beer," Turner announced to no one in particular.

"Kiss 'im!" Cried Danny.

"Fuck you, you great tubby drunk." Wainwright's voice was as sharp as always, and sliced through the din of the pub. "Yer not gettin' the satisfaction. You want to see some gay action? Go nip off to the men's room and get off with yer boyfriend there."

"Right!" Cartwright piped up. "There's a nice big mirror in there you and Chief Inspector Poof can snog in front of."

Danny's mouth fell open in surprise, while Angel's snapped closed. Now all eyes turned to them. Tony coughed and sputtered into his beer once again. Doris held her breath.

"Actually..." Nicholas said thoughtfully. "Hmm. Good idea." And then a wolfish sort of smile crept across his face. "I haven't given Danny his present yet."

With that he rose, grabbing Danny by the elbow and pulling him to his feet as well. "Come on Danny, let's get you home. It's time for gay birthday action."

"Oh! Really? Already?" Danny clapped his hands eagerly and hastily donned his jacket. "Cheers, everyone! Great party! Gotta go! See you Monday!"

Walker sighed. "Ehh. Nut'n wurms yer hurt li' a chubeh, sushuly eagur yun man uneh's wehtabed wita wuneh luffs. Reck'n?"

"Yep. It's beautiful, in its own unique way." Turner agreed.

Wainwright rolled his eyes in exaggerated disgust. "Oh, Christ. Listen Danny, don't bum 'im too vigorously now. Nick's a fragile little man and he needs his sleep."

"Oh, detective." Nicholas's voice was deadly low, and for a moment it looked as though things might actually turn serious. But then Wainwright saw the glint in his eye. "You are so very, very wrong."

"Aaaugh! No!" Wainwright recoiled in mock horror as Nicholas winked, chuckled and headed for the door, pulling Danny with him. "Don't make me picture it!"

Doris bit her bottom lip and sighed. "God, it's all I think about sometimes."

Both Andys blinked, then stared at her in mild alarm and confusion.

After a few minutes' lively gossip about Sandford's happiest couple, everyone turned back to their drinks and resumed normal, non-bumming related conversations. Except for Wainwright, who looked at his partner and then shook his head.

"God. How is it that those two twats get more sex than anybody else in the village?"

Cartwright shook his head, equally frustrated.

"They're cheating. You can't team up like that, it doesn't count."

"Yeah," Wainwright sighed. "Lucky cunts. Wish I were bent sometimes."

Cartwright pulled a Tony, nearly snorting beer up his nose as he choked mid-drink.

"Wot??"

"You heard me. I mean, don't fuckin' tell no one. But those blokes get it left and right, seems like."

"Yeah, front and back too!" Cartwright snorted. "You need help, mate."

"Ah, fuck you. I'm just sayin'. Like, us real men will all go home alone tonight, maybe have a sad, drunken wank if we can, and then fall asleep." Tony, who'd been listening, raised a finger to object. Wainwright nodded. "`Cept Tony," he conceded, "who ain't allowed to wank unless his wife tells him he can." Tony gave a nod of thanks for the recognition.

"And?" Cartwright waited for his friend's logic to reveal itself.

"And... well, Nichol-arse just left here, happy as can be, on his way home to a heapin' hot helping of Butternut Squash." Wainwright spread his hands out, palms up, as if to say There, see? Point proven.

Then, after a moment, his face fell. "Jesus. I can't believe I just fuckin' said that out loud."

Cartwright snorted. "I can't believe you're not getting laid, with an eloquent tongue like that. That's some poetic fuckin' imagery, right there!"

"Yeah, ain't it just?" He tipped his glass from side to side and frowned, troubled. "My beer's empty." He looked at Cartwright, then back at the glass, then back to Cartwright again. "So's yours. What do you reckon?"

"Nick and Danny'll hear about it, you know."

"Yeah. But we'll deny it. Oi! Doris!"

Cartwright saw her gaze snap towards them just as Wainwright loomed into his personal space.

During the split second in which he realized Andy was actually serious, Cartwright managed to squeak out "Erm, wait. Maybe this isn't -- mmph!" Then his partner's face collided gracelessly with his, and all he could do was close his eyes and wait for it to be over. He registered the Velcro sensation of their two moustaches fighting for dominance, and then, sweet Jesus, the prod of a wet tongue against his tightly pursed lips. He heard a whoop of disbelief and surprise go up around the table, and then actual applause. He started to pull away, but Wainwright's hands came up to his cheeks and held him firmly in place.

Three... four... five... and then Cartwright gave up, and started kissing back.

Miles away, he heard Doris practically scream with laughter. Turner was cheering them on quite vocally now as well, as though he were rooting for Bristol to make a winning goal in the last ten seconds. Then the hot hands on his face shifted and Cartwright jerked his head away, blushing furiously and gasping for air a little more than was absolutely necessary.

"What the. Fahh...?" Was about all he could manage.

"Next two rounds on Doris, mates!" Wainwright beamed magnanimously at his crime fighting brothers in arms, clapping a still sputtering Cartwright on the shoulder. "Nick and Danny ain't the only ones reapin' the benefits of homosexuality tonight."

As Doris headed grudgingly for the bar, Wainwright leaned close to his now slightly wary partner.

"That weren't so bad. Worth a couple of beers, I'd say."

It wasn't the kissing Cartwright minded so much as the cocky, I just blew everybody's mind, including yours look on Wainwright's face.

"Yeah, you were pretty good," he agreed. "Give me a bit of warning next time though, right?"

He smiled sweetly at his partner. The look on Wainwright's face was priceless.

***

Andy Wainwright saw New Andy for the first time in his life while loitering behind the castle. He had not attended the church fete the previous Saturday, because what sort of wanker would be seen at a church do?

"Hullo." A non-committal conversational gambit.

"Alright. I'm Andy. I just moved here."

"Yeah. Me too. Andy, I mean."

"Cool. Nice football."

"Not as nice as your sister's arse."

New Andy didn't even blink. "I ain't got a sister."

Andy processed this. "Well I do." He smiled. "And she's a right slapper, so watch what you say about her. You wouldn't want to ruin your reputation."

New Andy grinned. "Oh, now you fuckin' tell me."

Andy's smiled widened, and he let out a pleased little chuckle. "Fuck, right?"

New Andy nodded at the football. "Fancy playing?"

Andy thought about it, then shrugged. "Sure."

"Cool."

Minutes later, Andy officially determined that he liked this new Cartwright kid. He had a talent for swearing, seemed to enjoy aimlessly kicking a football, and didn't talk except to either to agree with Wainwright or make him laugh.

They stopped playing when the shadows began to stretch long across the bright green, evenly trimmed grass. Cartwright made sure to breathe a little harder than was absolutely necessary, to demonstrate just how much Wainwright had winded him with his skillful footwork.

They walked home together, Wainwright pointing out a tree with excellent climbing branches here, a yard with a fuck ugly dog there, a shop with good comic books there. Two streets before Cartwright's house, they turned onto a small path with a tall stone fence. Wainwright looked around, paused, then nodded gravely to himself as if having finally reached some serious, life-affecting decision.

Then he leveled a shrewd look at Cartwright, heavy with judgment.

"You smoke?"

"Sure." Cartwright replied, just a little too quickly.

Wainwright studied the other boy's face for a moment. "You don't though, do you?"

"Well, I haven't." Cartwright admitted. "But I could if I wanted!"

"Do you want to?"

"You mean now? Do you smoke?"

"Yeah, I fuckin' smoke. Come here."

"How'd you get those?"

"Found `em. They're uh..." he referred the package. "Menthol. So they're stronger."

"Right, yeah."

"Here... hold on."

"My dad'll kill me if he hears I've been smoking. You sure nobody can see us back here?"

"Here, it's lit for you."

"Cool." Cartwright took a drag on the cigarette handed to him.

Wainwright watched. The other boy seemed to actually inhale the smoke, unlike most wankers who only held it in their mouth the first time. And then, in a moment of Pure Cool (that years later, even Cartwright himself could scarcely believe had happened) he exhaled in a steady, smooth stream. And did not cough. Not even once.

Wainwright's eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and he cleared his throat.

"Alright." Was all he said, as he tried to suppress the feelings of wonder and admiration that threatened to light up his face and flood his adolescent heart to overflowing.

After that they only parted company for the rest of the summer holiday to sleep, wash and occasionally eat meals with their respective families. Some would have called it friendship. Some (though none of the residents of Sandford, and certainly not the boys themselves) would have called it love. Later on, it simply felt as though they'd been practicing being partners for a decade before clocking in for their first day of work together.

***

Tony made short work of Skinner's stock boys, eliciting a surrender from them with only a few warning shots and a forbidding glare. They were just smart enough to know that pineapples were no match for bullets. Once they were safely subdued and sat in a line by the now demolished butcher's counter, Doris gave them a blisteringly stern talking to about career choices and the foolishness of violence. Then she and Tony went to check on Michael in the freezer section, leaving the Andys to round up the butcher brothers.

"Kicked some proper arse there, didn't we?" Wainwright remarked in a low, conspiratorial voice, his foot planted firmly between one butcher's shoulder blades as Cartwright bent down to cuff the other.

"Too fuckin' right we did," Cartwright answered, but without the sort of enthusiasm his partner had expected.

"You alright, mate?"

Cartwright's face looked slightly ashen. For one weird moment his riot gear and moustache seemed to fade out of existence, and he looked all of thirteen years old -- pale, clueless, scared and fundamentally pissed off.

"Mate? Andy?"

Cartwright blinked at Wainwright, and the moment was gone.

"Yeah. I, uh..." Cartwright coughed. "You?"

Wainwright nodded.

"Good. You've got red on you," he noted, and wiped some bolognese sauce from Wainwright's forehead.

And of course he was alright. They both were. They'd kicked some proper arse.

The next day they were all in the hospital. Walker was still in ICU, but the doctors said it was just a precaution. Doris had a sprained wrist and some kind of scratched-cornea-eye-problem thing. Tony had a broken arm, and the Turners had escaped with minor cuts and bruises.

Tom Weaver was dead.

Wainwright tried to check on Danny, but was turned away at the door by a nurse.

"One visitor at a time," she informed him calmly, then trod snappily away in her bright, white trainers and stiff, polyester dress. He waited until she rounded the corner, then manoeuvred close to the room's window on his crutches and peered through the criss-cross of safety wire to see who had already taken up a position at Danny's side.

Nick. Of course. At first Andy thought he was asleep, leaning on the bed with his cheek resting on the pillow next to Danny's shoulder, but then his lips moved and Andy could see that he was talking, saying something very quietly and... angrily? Not quite. But his brow was furrowed, his face twisted tighter and tighter into a scowl as he whispered into Danny's ear. His hand was wrapped around Danny's -- the one not encumbered with I.V. hook-ups, oximeter finger clip, splints, and... Jesus. Danny's right hand was the only bit of him not covered in medical equipment or bandages. Butterman was a mess, and his hand was the one part of his broken body that was safe to touch.

Wainwright kept looking. Nick's knuckles were white in an iron-tight grip as though he were keeping his partner there with him by the strength of that hand clasp alone. Yet the way his thumb circled, stroking at Danny's wrist, looked so gentle that Andy had to look away, embarrassed.

He swallowed, then turned quickly away before anyone, especially Angel, could catch him watching.

He limped and hopped his way back to the small waiting room down the hall, armpits already aching from bearing his weight. Found his partner there picking at the Velcro straps of his wrist splint, knee bouncing in a frantic, nicotine-craving rhythm. Sat down beside Cartwright, put a hand on his knee to stop it jiggling.

Cartwright's gaze snapped to meet his, surprised.

"If." Wainwright stopped, tried to think for a second, and then decided to just go ahead and speak. "If you'd been hit by those butcher knife bastards at Somerfield. Or Weaver, or that bloody sea mine..." He grimaced and shook his head.

"What?" Cartwright's voice was very soft.

"I'd've fuckin' killed you, mate."

He squeezed Cartwright's knee once, then removed his hand carefully and scrubbed it through his own matted, slightly-singed hair in a gesture that would only have appeared nervous to someone who'd known him a long time.

"Um." Cartwright cleared his throat. "Then you know how I felt, yeah? At the shop." His leg had set to bouncing again, a little slower now.

"Yeah." Wainwright dipped his head to hide the tremble in his lower lip. Thank Christ his moustache hadn't been damaged in the explosion.

"Yeah. Same." Cartwright let out a deep sigh weighted with a dozen sentiments, relief just one among them. There was only a slight tremble in his voice as he successfully choked back some very manly tears.

"Oh my god." Doris groaned impatiently from the next row of chairs over. "Just kiss, will you?"

Cartwright barked a laugh and slung his arm around Wainwright's shoulder. "No way, Dorie. You couldn't handle it."

Wainwright nodded sagely. "You couldn't take the physical strain. You'd drop all yer eggs at once and die on the spot. Or your other eye'd go wonky. I'm not havin' that on my conscience!"

Doris's eyes widened comically as she giggled, winced in pain, and then giggled some more.

And then, in a moment of Pure Something, Andy leaned in and pulled Andy into a hug. And held him. Tight.

"Alright," was all Andy said, face pressed into Andy's hair.

It didn't matter which Andy. They were both there.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2007 as a yuletide gift for Livejournal user Luna. Thanks to LJ user easilyled and others for the editorial help, and LJ user eatenbyweasels for the brit pick. All remaining errors are mine. I've messed around with dates a little. According to the headstone shown in the movie, Irene died in 1993.


End file.
